


symbiosis

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Stalia, fragments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:32:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have time to point and linger, until the sky opens without warning, gushing all around them, and Malia teaches Stiles how to find cover in the woods. Stiles teaches Malia a new word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	symbiosis

They’re here to practice. She’s here because Stiles is here, and she’s got nowhere else to be.

She’s taken over the benches, dampness from the heavy morning rain soaking into her jeans. She’s cold, colder than usual, watching until Scott and Stiles become smaller and smaller at the end of the field to fiddle with their Lacrosse bags. She fiddles with the newspaper clipping she discovered in Stiles’s bedroom, detailing her recovery from the woods.

It doesn’t say much. There isn’t much to say. Her grainy picture holds her in a flat gaze – she doesn’t want them to think she’s listening.

She can hear pretty well when she concentrates.

"Coyote derived from a Nahuatl word meaning  _trickster,_  Stiles,” Scott is saying.

“Yeah, you know what, I liked you better when you didn’t do your reading.”

 “Seriously, Stiles.”

“I am so serious, believe me. Now you just _know_  everything. It’s unattractive on you.”

“Can I trust her?”

She can hear his steady thudding rhythm, feel his gaze straying like he knows she’s listening. The thin cutout seems to waver with her stare, but no, it’s the sudden wind, colder than ever.

“I trust her”, Stiles says, and Malia shivers.

“Alright”, Scott says, as though Stiles’s trust solves everything.

Maybe it does. Malia slips the paper through the slits on the bench.

They watch it flicker-flutter into the mud.

—-

“In the human civilization”, Stiles is saying, gesturing widely so that the waitress has to step around his arm, “we pay for food.”

The tray settles with a clatter and a small avalanche of fries. Stiles rips open a packet of sauce and spills it everywhere, spreading the thick red, and Malia is so hungry she can’t concentrate on what he’s saying, his voice hanging idly above the rain outside and the clicking heels and forks of the diner, wrapping around her like a second jacket – above the one she’s borrowed.

The scent of him, suspended heavy, does more than wool ever would.

And,  _wow_ , rabbits were good, but fries? Fries are  _wonderful_.

“We don’t kill…well, we kill but on an industrial producer-consumer kinda way, not you and me, geddit? We don’t bully for food, or steal food – well yeah, okay, you can steal mine, but don’t steal anyone else’s okay? Not cool.”

Burgers are good. Milkshake is good. Stiles’s feet moving to trap her’s is good. The world is wonderful, and Stiles warms her legs between his calves.  

“In the human civilization”, he says,  _pontificates,_ actually – word of the day, “there’s no fight or flight. There’s try and see if you can bully and oppress and if you can’t, there’s semi-equal footing and make believe peace, you follow? Hey,  _hey,_  leave some for me alright?”

Greasy fingers brushing, they somehow take long enough for the rain to pass.

Stiles talks nonstop, building human schematics in the air.

—-

“You okay?” Stiles says, wriggling his fingers close by as though he might tickle her. He doesn’t, takes back his hand to drum on the steering wheel.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You haven’t spoken since you said you wanted more fries. Do you want more fries?”

“Too full. Do you?”

“Do I want more fries, oh my god, Malia, I  _always_ want more fries, it’s all about self control and discipline.”

“You don’t have any of either.”

He lifts his eyes off the road to narrow them at her, and she panics for half a second because it’s been raining and the road will be slippery, until Stiles says, “Are you saying I’m fat?”

And she laughs, says, “You’re alright.”

“Alright, that’s nice. I can do with alright. Are you alright?”

The windows are rolled all the way up, dotted with raindrops racing one another to the bottom, and Malia’s been watching them curve a path on glass, competing one drop against the other like she used to with her sister. She’s alright – there’s nothing to be not alright about, driving without direction (they have nowhere to be) and with the heady scent of Stiles. She’s so warm in his jacket.

She wants to say sleepy. She says, “Drowsy”, and Stiles smiles, curving neatly into a parking space.

He pats his shoulder and says, “I’m the best pillow you’ll find around here.”

—-

She knows he’s gone before she rouses.

He’s gone, seat still warm and a rolled up shirt wedged under her head. Blinking sleep away, she pushes herself up to draw the jacket closed, sleeves falling over fingers. Stiles’s door’s been left open just a sliver, as though to not wake her.

His scent is everywhere like a cloud and she can’t pick a trace. Outside, it seems grey and quiet.

Except there’s a twisting low in her belly, like the heavy feeling of weightlessness before you crash and crumple, so she pushes out into the cutting-cold air, squinting.

“Stiles?”

It must be late afternoon, but the dark clouds make it late evening, and a store blazes with blurry lights. She remembers Stiles say, “It gets dangerous when the streets are empty.”

The streets are empty. There’s a scuffle – Malia catches his scent.

Then there are flailing limbs and Stiles being dragged back and slammed into a wall.

He’s yelling.  _Fine, fine, just take it._

Malia knows her own screaming growl, and the large man rears stupidly,  _what the hell,_ before he crashes on his back and crumples.

Malia knows the scent of blood.

She knows the scent of Stiles, hands wrapping around her arms.  _Malia! Malia, stop!_

Savage satisfaction, she wipes at her mouth and steps away from her handiwork, curling into himself on wet concrete. Stiles drags her against him, as though he could stop her if she attacks, and she might, she might break the groaning lump into a million pieces.

“Let’s go. Come on. We have to go”, Stiles says, and he tugs her to the jeep, slamming both doors. She turns to see him limping up as Stiles screeches them away.

Stiles looks at her, she looks at Stiles, and he grins.

“Wow, I just wanted some candy. That was  _awesome_ ”, he says, looking from her to the streets to her, and she thinks he might give in to glee and drive them into a truck. He rounds the corner and pulls over, shifts to yank his rolled up shirt from beneath him and toss it into the back. Malia catches the bruise forming around his jaw and wonders at his lack of distress.

His lack of distress is awesome.

“Fight or flight?” Malia says. Stiles laughs,  _touché,_  and pulls her close, saying, “Thanks for saving my wallet, knight in my old jacket.”

—-

It doesn’t rain for a while, so Stiles keeps driving, debating Star Destroyer versus Enterprise – Malia says Stiles shouldn’t have introduced her to them in the first place, and Stiles says,  _of course he should have,_ now she’s hot  _and_  nerdified – he’s had wet dreams like these since he could have wet dreams and then Malia wants him to explain wet dreams and he falters and gestures until,  _oh yeah, yeah,_ Malia gets it, hugging the wool tight.

The Joker is cooler than everyone else put together, they both agree.

They hop out into the woods, following a trail of vines, because neither of them can sit too still for too long. Stiles trips on roots and Malia catches his sleeve to keep him upright.

He grabs her hand, saying, “Next time I go down I’m taking you with me.”

“I’d like to see you try”, she says, and Stiles catches her by surprise around her waist, into the mud and then they’re making out on the forest floor.

It’s getting dark, but there’s time to show him which direction the moss grows in. There’s time to tell him about the coyotes, how they’ll chase a rabbit into a burrow, how a badger will dig in from the other end, snaring it into an ambush, and how they’ll share the kill: partners in the wild.

They have time to point and linger, until the sky opens without warning, gushing all around them, and Malia teaches Stiles how to find cover in the woods. Stiles teaches Malia a new word.

_Symbiosis._

—-

When it gets too dark, they’re both cold, shivering into the jeep.

She tugs off the jacket and Stiles leans in to adjust it over the both of them, tangling their legs together.

There are things here that go bump in the night and Stiles seems to trust her to keep safe. The woods have been her home for a near decade and they’re alright here, with his trust and the smell of him and his kisses along her ear.

They’ve both done things they didn’t mean to. Stiles kisses her like he means it, and she means the kisses she gives him, and they both want and they want and they want.

Human civilization could last; she could last in it. Stiles is sliding warm palms to her chest.


End file.
